Uffe den tuffe

In what way do these points tell us that religion and science are not opposites?

I believe his point is that from either perspective, the other exists logically within. Ergo, they are not antithetical but complementary.

Of course if they are proper complements of each other, they are in some sense opposites. However, that seems to be nitpicking.

Yet from a "third" position (if there is such a thing), it seems science and religion are in constant battle over which things in this world are holy and which are profane.

It would be great (perhaps) if things could be both holy and profane, but it seems that things profane are things to be experimented with, theorized about and open for discussion, something which the holy by definition can never be.

We may discuss what God actually is from a theological standpoint etc., but even this challenges the idea of what is holy.

If science triumphs with regards to whether the sun orbits the Earth or not, religion can't keep that concept -- science has stolen its space.

And so it seems to me that religion and science are not complementary after all, but two forces fighting for space. Because some things are holy, and some are not.

+ If you don't think God made the world, science explains religion.+ If you think God made the world, religion explains science and religion.

I don't agree that this covers all possibilities. Even if 'God' (whatever you mean by that) made the world, science may still explain religion and everything else. Evolution is the most sexy process i've ever come across. Why shouldn't it be God's work (especially if it leads to belief in Him!)?

Post-agriculture allowed the formation of strong eusociality in *some* humans. This explains moralism, civilisation, Gods as a nucleus within the civilisation in which to direct individual actions, so what is good for the whole, is good for the self - if that self is good toward the whole = evolution of complex societies and abstract intelligence.

We enhance our environment surrounding us, building it up so that natural forces are not the dictate as to what can and can't survive (surrogate activities replace direct survival, greater intelligence is fostered) the result is tooth and claw for gun and metal. Rapidly we became more distant and are able to survive one, two, three steps removed from direct confrontation and sensuality (civilised) -- fed through arteries of resource and data chains, marching in from the outside world. We live in a eusocial reality that must be retuned toward our God(s) and toward the reality outside of it for securing a lasting and permanent supply of data and resource.

You see, we can't deny our God(s) as much as eusocial insects can deny their Hive(s). They may try to go it alone now and then, but it is impossible for them to survive long-term that way - because of the existence of other Hive(s) who will eventually overrun them. In a future with secure energy supplies, the advances in artificial intelligence through science allows the eusocial element to have a form and shell outside of the perishable organic and be able to surround biology with internets and neural networks. Mortal biology is weak, fickle and can't even hold a civilisation for more than a few hundred years at prime because genetic and cultural drift including power shift makes it unstable.

The harmonising of both organic/inorganic (multicellular becomes an ordered cell of the superorganism, with a greater range of materials for life to possess) will shift multicellular organisms toward superorganisms where the limits of natural law will apply differently as greater ones will be discovered and adapted to. This allowing terrestrial ecosystems, through the civilisation, mechanisation, to jump the gravity depression and do anything technology can do, to eat the dead planets and absorb them into the cycle.

Intelligence will become more efficient and downsized to maximise survival where it is not needed, for each superorganism the intelligence will have an inorganic nucleus outside of contemporary biology and in technological artifacts which will communicate to individuals through an hierarchical internet, like a nervous system. Religion is the primitive prototype, being composed of abstract, eusocial rituals and physical materials that are 'possessed' with the data of the God(s).

For Religions in general, we can firmly say a FU to fundamentalists and welcome in the brutal scientific types, who will given time to advance actually help the God by giving it a consciousness in our reality, not just in the eusocial reality. At present we're dealing with frenzied neurotic prototypes who have weaker God(s) thriving on declining resources, neither will do.